#deacon meta

[proserpinewrites]

Do you ever think about how Deacon’s wife is named Barbara, and Saint Barbara was a martyr who is venerated by Catholics who face the danger of sudden and violent death at work? And that her name comes from the Greek word for ‘strangers’? Barbara the synth, Barbara who dies a sudden, violent death and whose widower joins the Railroad after her death, where he faces the threat of sudden, violent death every damned day? Unfortunately, now I do and I can’t unthink it. Probably not intentional on the part of the writers, but damn.

[softlyapocalytpic]

Deacon

My interpretation of Deacon is very much in the camp of, “every good lie has a seed of truth”. Got no idea if that what makes a good lie, but I think it’s a fun story telling device so idc. I never want to take away from him being a liar because it feels like it’d be a disservice to his character, but from his dialogue it feels like there’s always that grain of truth. Rather than just flat out lies, he twists the truth. The only time it ever feels flat out is when you’re supposed to doubt him, (like that he’s been to Greenland or played cards with Mr. House). It’s wacky, outlandish, and he plays it straight because that’s apart of the joke.

Because at his heart he’s a goofball! I think that Deacon shows more of who he truly is than he realizes by the mere fact that he doesn’t really know who that is anymore. If you spend sometime time as the lie, when does it become the truth?

He’s so edgy in own head, but I think that his true colors show from his actions which are usually spent either a) protecting the people he loves, or b) keeping their spirits high. He may be cynical, but he doesn’t want to be. He admires optimism and hope and surrounds himself in it, and I think some of it rubs off on him when he isn’t looking.

How can he not? The way that I can hear his voice SPARKLE after you blow up the Institute… Like the whole world has just taken on a new brighter shade. But also the way that he fights, and he fights, and he fights even in the darkest hours of the Railroad. At times I think he feels beaten down and broken, like he couldn’t get up again, but then he looks at these beacons of hope like Dez, Glory, and everyone else and he can’t help it! While he definitely has the “man loses last bit hope he didn’t know he had” moment, he doesn’t stay in the darkness. He’s magnetized to the light. Something something a lantern in the dark hehe.

Piper

I’ve fallen in love a little bit with almost all of the Fallout 4 companions, and Piper is the latest 💞. I made a conscious effort to spend more time with her on my survival play through and she’s just so charming. Bethesda knew what they were doing and they got my pansexual ass hook, line, and sinker. She’s sweet, and awkward, and passionate, and quirky, and goofy, and driven. What’s there not love?

I think my Piper is definitely a reflection of what I’m feeling like in my early twenties, except a more fantasized “country girl in the big apple vibes” version. Life is an adventure, and oh fuck being an adult with responsibility is difficult. I care so much about my community yet feel so isolated for one reason or the other. She’s fighting for justice but doesn’t have it all together yet. She trips, stumbles, and is learning.

I think the biggest roadblock for loving her character had been the contradiction of being ostensibly pro-synth but also lambasting McDonough for being a synth publicly. However, when I took a look at that as a character arc I really began to appreciate her!

Piper’s point was never to promote synth hate, and I’m so compelled by her grappling and dealing with the fact that she did. That her constant strive to deliver the unabashed truth, along with her (rightful) disdain of McDonough as a person meant that she helped the paranoia. That she made synths the bad guys rather than the Institute at large. Her seeing the toll of a full out war with propaganda from all sides, and developing another layer to her belief system. An awareness of her words and how they effect people.

Cait

I know that for some character arcs it’s about learning to be okay in your own body, on your own, but it’s SO important to me that Cait ends her story with someone absolutely smitten for her. It doesn’t matter the gender (although I’m personally partial to a girlfriend for her), she needs someone to hold her. To be patient with her. To call her out on her shit when she’s being dumb, and stand by her through the roughest parts of her journey. I want her to feel warm, and safe, and held and to be surrounded by people who love and appreciate her.

Also want her to have a complicated relationship with drugs that isn’t easy, but that she feels like she has agency and choice over. That she doesn’t need to feel ashamed for her drug use! That sure she’s got baggage but she’s so worth carrying it. I want Cait to live an easy breezy life where she’s surrounded by laughter.

(Man I guess this was less meta and more me wanting to give Cait nice things lmao).

In such a bad mood after reading something that I won’t say more about because I don’t care for engaging in internet discourse! So instead I wanna post something positive! These are just some thoughts on a couple of the companions. Definitely not the full breadth of my thoughts, but I’m kinda just not in the mood to be critical right now. Just need something good to cheer me up. Hope it can do the same for you!

My interpretations generally tend towards the sweeter more optimistic end, and I’m aware of that. But I stand by them none-the-less. I want the wasteland to become a softer place, not a harder one, and I think that while characters start out in dark places they can be lifted out of that. Fallout already spends so much time really showing off the depths of the horrors of humanity and I think that it needs to foster hope. Hope and growth give meaning to the struggle. The violence may be pointless but then we can choose to be different. Idk y’all it’s nearly two in the morning and I just want some feel goods after being absolutely STEAMED.

If you wanna join in on the fun and add your own thoughts I’d love to hear them. About these guys or any others. I just picked a random three myself. It can be angsty! I just ask to keep things respectful and compassionate in how you talk about it.

[riccaby]

I made way more sprites in that new style, they’ve been a ton of fun to work on.

that last one is just playing with timeskip/post-pandemic ("post"-pandemic) designs. of course Meta who already hates getting haircuts hasn't had one in years, and maybe Nilla finally got the confidence to wear skirts (but still not confident enough to wear one without leggings)

Janice eventually dying her hair purple and starting to wear more yellow is actually an idea I had cooked up for the comic literally like five years ago, completing the trifecta of complimentary shirt/hair color schemes

maybe someday...

[arthurmorganmcgill]

Also the fact that Deacon is as funny as he is furthers my Jewish!Deacon headcanon even more

[venus-haze]

You're My Best Friend (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: Homelander was a test tube baby, raised in isolation in a cold, clinical lab. But that doesn’t inspire America, does it? Vought tasks you with creating the idyllic backstory for its hero, and what starts as a limited comic run spirals out of control when Homelander himself demands your help in making the story a reality.

Note: Gender neutral reader, but no other descriptors are used. Based on a request by @crash-and-cure as well as a bastardization of one of the sweetest love songs ever written (sorry, John Deacon!) This got kinda meta? Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Emotional manipulation, I guess some gaslighting on Homelander’s part? Do not interact if you’re under 18.

When Vought hired you to create their long-awaited Homelander origin comic series, you were thrilled—until they gave you so little information about his childhood to work with, you weren’t even sure you could come up with one comic, let alone the ten they requested. The details about his childhood were minimal, not even a full printed page—a loving mom and dad, played baseball, did well in school, strong sense of justice from a young age, his friends called him “Johnny.” Your requests to meet with Homelander so you could get some stories from the man himself were constantly denied.

You almost considered dropping the project, until you decided to throw caution to the wind and pull from your own childhood and set it in good ol’ generic suburbia. Some of the storylines were based on your own experiences or things that had happened to people you’d grown up with, though you changed enough names and details to not link it to anyone in particular. Except yourself, of course. Using a pseudonym professionally meant you felt no need to change your own name in the comics. Sure, making your cooler fictionalized self Homelander’s childhood best friend was a bit self-indulgent, but no one would know, really.

To your relief, the editors at Vought loved your ideas, making minor changes before bringing the storylines to their comic artists to bring it to life. The result was Finding Homelander: A Boy’s Journey To Be a Hero. The issues flew off shelves when they were first released, ironically praised for their relatability and authenticity. Vought extended your contract, asking you to produce the cartoon adaptation and another ten issues.

Still, in all of that, you’d never met Homelander. A representative from Vought emailed you to let you know to tune in to his interview on a talk show one day, saying that he’d be talking more about the cartoon project on it. You recognized the host, Tracey, always chipper and having some extravagant giveaway for her audience members. Daytime TV was never your thing, though.

“I think what resonates with so many people is how relatable your childhood is,” Tracey said, holding up a copy of Finding Homelander issue #3, where he saved ‘you’ from getting hit in the face with a baseball at one of his games, catching it with ease. It’d been the happy ending to a short storyline of him struggling to find his place on the team and you encouraging him to not give up. “You and Y/N were pretty close, do you still keep in touch?”

“You know, Tracey, not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. Adulthood can be so busy, you need to cherish those childhood memories,” Homelander said. “I did give them a call when the comics first came out, and wow, the laughs we had over those old antics of ours. Talk about a walk down memory lane!”

You guessed the bullshitting was all part of the promotional circuit for Homelander. Knowing this childhood of his was your own fabrication, you couldn’t help but wonder what else about him was fake. Maybe he wanted to maintain his privacy, you could certainly understand that. You couldn’t shake the voice in the back of your mind that said it wasn’t so simple, that the narrative Vought pushed was a cover to hide something in Homelander’s past.

“Now, I’ve heard rumors of a cartoon show based on the comics in the making, is this true?”

“It is! I’m excited for this project, getting back to my ‘roots’ so to speak. I’ll be voicing myself, of course, but it’s funny you’d bring up Y/N, because they’ve agreed to voice themself, too.”

“How fun!” Tracey exclaimed over the roar of the talk show crowd’s applause and cheers. “I guess this is the hopeless romantic in me, but I hope this reconnection leads to something a little more. I’m just a sucker for childhood sweethearts!��� 

Homelander laughed along with the host’s giggles, “Well, you never know.”

You balked at the television, mouth agape. Surely he couldn’t be talking about you. ‘Y/N’ could be anyone with your same features. Vought had probably hired a professional voice actor for the role and were pushing the authenticity angle. The whole situation felt odd. 

When you checked your work email again on your phone, you nearly dropped it on the floor. 

SUBJECT: Meeting with Homelander This Week

The email contained a list of days and times throughout the week wherein Homelander would be free, apparently wanting to meet you to thank you for the success of the comic series and discuss upcoming work. Yeah. That last part you sure as hell wanted to discuss too. You responded with the soonest time available, in a meeting room in Vought Tower the following evening. As soon as you hit ‘send’, you wondered what exactly you were getting yourself into.

Anticipation filled your gut as you went about your day leading up to meeting the supe himself. What would he be like, really be like? Was there even a version of Homelander that wasn’t hopelessly manufactured for the masses? You knew then that his upbringing was a lie, and thus stood the probability that so much else was, too. 

When you stepped into that meeting room, you hadn’t been expecting his face to light up at the sight of you. 

“Homelander, hi, it’s great to—“

“No need to be so formal, Y/N! You can call me Johnny, just like old times,” he said cheerfully, in on a joke you clearly hadn’t been aware of.

“Sorry, Johnny,” you said, playing along. “It’s great to see you again.”

He pulled you in for an unexpected hug that you returned. “Figured we should catch up before things really start getting crazy, don’t you think?”

You nodded, your nose brushing against him as you did so. Just as your lips parted to offer an apology, he smiled, shooing away the assistant who’d accompanied him out of the room. 

He sat down, motioning for you to do the same.

“Gotta say, I’m a fan of your work,” he said.

“Thank you,” you said. “I’m not sure I understand exactly what’s going on, though.”

“What’s there to understand? I’m not allowed to know more about my best friend, our lives together growing up?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together, but considering everyone else around here has their head up their asses, they have no idea,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially and giving you a charming smile. “I haven’t told anyone. What’s a secret between friends?”

You nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of his attention on you. “What do you want to know?”

He sighed, resting his head on his hand. “Everything.”

So you told him. Not quite everything, of course, but enough to abate his curiosity. At least for the time being. His interviews were sharper, more specific with details rather than rattling off whatever had been in the comics. You watched in shock as convincing photos of his Little League days were posted to his social media accounts, anecdotes provided by his increasingly frequent conversations–or more like interrogation sessions–with you, but in his style, of course. It was almost scary what the graphic design team at Vought could accomplish, not that you’d ever know how, exactly, as they were all under the same strict NDA that you were.

He started spending more time with you, too, and after a while, it did seem like you were old friends. Part of you flinched whenever you called him Johnny, because Johnny wasn’t even real, but with your complacency, this fabrication was slowly morphing into a strikingly tangible memory. With each conversation, he drew you deeper into the world you’d been paid to create for him until you found yourself slipping up.

You’d been showing him a goofy stuffed monkey on your desk, a cute little thing with big sparkling eyes. A prize for getting two out of three at the ring toss. Probably spent more money winning it than it was actually worth, but it was about the effort, the memories made.

“You remember, don’t you? You won it for me at the county fair,” you said without thinking.

He laughed in agreement, as if he actually had. Except he hadn’t. Your high school boyfriend won it for you a week before graduation. Sensing the mood shift, he set down your prize and looked at you with the same intensity he had when you first met.

“It’s been a while since we were there, huh?” he said. “Why don’t we go back?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “Go where?”

“Home.”

With a strong arm around your waist, he took off for your hometown. You could hardly tell which way was up or down, he was flying so high, but he didn’t seem to mind the way you clung to him at all. When he finally landed, you recognized the community baseball field where all of his fictional games were set. 

“Geez, it’s like nothing’s changed,” he said cheerfully.

You looked at him in disbelief. How long was he going to expect you to go along with it? Or maybe the question you should have been asking was, how long were you going to enable him? The end wasn’t anywhere in sight as he took your hand, and you walked him through your childhood, further enmeshing him in it until you arrived at the house you grew up in. 

The middle of the day, no one was home, and so you let yourselves in like you owned the place. Suddenly, the house seemed too small for a man like Homelander to occupy, but he was engrossed in the details of it. He scanned the kitchen, no doubt inspecting the contents of the fridge and cabinets with his x-ray vision. Moving onto the living room, he stared at photos on the wall, the magazines and DVDs that were strewn on the coffee table, giving away your parents’ taste in entertainment.

“Which one was your room again?” he asked.

You swore you could feel his breath on the back of your neck as you wordlessly led him to your room. Each step down the hall felt dangerous, as if you were about to walk into a trap. Face-to-face with the closed door, you opened it, standing aside while Homelander looked around, from what you had hanging on the walls to the knick-knacks you’d left behind.

An uncomfortable tension settled over the room when Homelander closed the door of your childhood bedroom. An odd blend of hurt and amusement spread across his face as he observed the way you were eyeing him, body ready to fruitlessly run from him the way a rabbit would a hawk.

“C’mon, after how long we’ve been friends, I would never hurt you,” he said, as if reading your mind. “We’ve been through so much together. I mean, we were each other’s first kiss.”

You froze. Issue #9. That was something Vought’s editors had added, claiming a romance angle would make the series appeal to the younger female demographic. You hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

He slyly backed you into the wall, leaning over you as you slinked down the slightest bit.

“Show me how we did it,” he whispered, his hand caressing your cheek. “So clumsy and nervous, I can even feel you…quivering.”

“Homelander, I don’t know what you’re—“

He tsked. “Y/N.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Johnny—“

He hummed in satisfaction. “It’s alright. I know it’s been a while.”

You let him kiss you, sweetly in a way that put your actual first kiss to shame. His lips were soft against yours, his tender movements intentional as he cradled your face, pulling you the slightest bit closer to him when you kissed him back. 

A sense of familiarity settled over you, warm and comforting like pulling a blanket out of the dryer on a chilly evening. Every time it seemed like you were beginning to overthink the situation with Homelander, he drew you back in with the kiss, a more than effective distraction until you pulled away with a dazed smile on your face.

[twosides--samecoin]

The history of the real-life Underground Railroad and the whole purpose thereof was co-opted and tossed to the side because Bethesda's mindset toward teaching/referencing history amounts to patchwork-pastiche and "Yo gamers, what if Hancock dressed in a frockcoat and said, 'Of the people for the people' whoaaa could you imagine" and instead of adding a single reference to the real Harriet Tubman, a modder did it themselves. In case it needs to be said, Bethesda is owned & operated by rich whites in an affluent and predominately white suburb of DC. Their interpretations of history, whether several-hundred years old or current is inherently based in a settler-colonial and anti-black context. Oh, in F3? They made the choice to release the whitest possible tourist version of DC that doesn't represent the breadth of culture and diverse people who live here, but, yeah, y'know, woohoo Deacon J. Railroad. Anyway here's that mod

while we're on the topic of anti-Indigenous racism in fallout, anyone else find the minutemen a bit Fucking Weird? like they're meant to be the Default Faction. the Unambiguous Good Guys. and they're literally colonial larpers asking you to "settle" the "uncivilized" commonwealth, whose enemies are cast as universally violent so its ok actually that you're "chasing out that scum." like does anyone else think its Fucking Bad to prop up this sort of allegorical recreation of american colonialism. anyone else think Choices Sure Were Made Here. or is it just me.

[amazinglyegg]

Fallout 4 companions as which Don't Starve Together character they'd main:

Cait: Wolfgang, and eats all the food so she can stay permanently mighty. I would say Wigfrid but she's too much of a team player, Cait's gonna run off and die unprepared and then whine if she doesn't get revived immediately

Curie: Webber. Cute little spider boy who can befriend spiders and make them friends with the team!! What's not to love?? Also enjoys being helpful to the team by getting a ton of silk and eating all the extra monster meat.

Codsworth: Warly 100%. He takes the work the others are too lazy to do and stays at camp the entire time. Probably has an list of every single crockpot recipe beside him while he plays.

Danse: Wilson. He doesn't get the point of picking a character with disadvantages and thinks having to jump through hoops to manage character-specific issues is ridiculous. He'll never play as anyone other than Wilson.

Deacon: Wes would be too obvious so I'm going with Winona. Doesn't go to base ever, people don't even know he exists, but whenever the team goes to fight a boss he already has a complex cheese setup with catapults and meatbulbs or something. Minmaxes everything.

Gage: Willow. Burns down the chests when his sanity gets low and gets banned immediately.

Hancock: Probably Wortox??? He wants to be a little freak of some sort, that's for sure. Completely abuses his teleports out of laziness and never actually uses his souls responsibly.

Longfellow: Chooses Wickerbottom, dies to Charlie on the first night, then turns off DST and plays Shipwrecked instead. Picks Woodlegs. Still dies on the first night.

Maccready: If not Wolfgang, he probably hears X6 talk about meta strategies and plays as Wanda! Finds it very entertaining that an old lady is one of the strongest characters, and not having a health meter makes him feel much stronger than he really is.

Nick Valentine: Picks Woodie randomly at the character select screen without reading his description, gets pretty attached to Lucy and the easy wood supply. You can imagine his shock on the first full moon.

Piper: Refuses to pick a main for the longest time and goes down the entire list every time she dies, until she reaches Walter. She just CANNOT part with Woby, no matter how much she sucks at playing as him.

Preston: Wendy! He needs Abigail to help him with fights, I doubt he's very good at games. Definitely says he's going on a quick supply run then gets sidetracked by helping pipspooks. He can't just IGNORE them!!

X6-88: W8-78 would be the expected one (same naming scheme!) but I doubt X6 would enjoy having to run around and scan rabbits with Jimmy. He'd probably pick some minmaxer like Wanda or Wolfgang and ruins rush day 1 or whatever. He totally follows an online guide and ragequits when he realizes picking a "meta" character =/= automatic win.

[artofrikka]

Art Fight Drawings: Round 5

(Not really posted in order of drawn, credits under the cut as usual)

Parts 14-16 of Sieg and Freya's Pilgrimage-to-Meet-A-Bunch-of-Their-Half-Siblings (Name tentative)

Credits under cut:

Lev (and Deathbringer), Epimetheus - @galakianexplosion

Dawn - @konoa-t

Astrolodee - @the-chaos-axolotl

M3ph1st0s - galakianexplosion

Meta Knight and Galaxia (Kirby the Puffball AU) - @blueberryfruitbat

Iksha - galakianexplosion

Reuben and Wattz - konoa-t

Ezekiel, Pope Deacon, Athena (Olive), Morphée- galakianexplosion

Angelina - @chookily

Cherry, Fumiko, Nate - @gumifan222

Half Siblings visited by Sieg and Freya

Onya - @moonmacabre01

Bunny and Velma - @xwildwhirlx

Sunset - @deafeninggardenerpanda

Gibbous - blueberryfruitbat

Andromeda - @erythteria

[oldworldwidgets]

either someone at bethesda had their epiphany for this railroad character's name while listening to this song OR, and hear me out: livin' on a prayer and, by extension, jon bon jovi is canon in the fallout universe and deacon thought that shit would be reeeealllll funny. where r my meta essayists

[wynought]

So, just like my previous post on the First Stoat's names let's look into the new information we found out in the latest episode (Burrow's End episode 8 spoilers under the cut)

So let's get the most important thing out of the way first, cause there's a lot to go through here: Obviously, Phoebe also means light - the name originates from the Ancient Greek word φοῖβος (phoibos) for "pure", "bright", "radiant" etc.

The word itself was used as an epithet for the sibling deities Apollo (god of, among other things, sun and prophecy) and Artemis (goddess of, among other things, the moon, wild animals, and the hunt). They inherit this name from their grandmother, the Titaness Phoebe who is associated by proxy with the moon and prophecy, but not actually a deity of anything. For her, it seems to be mostly a name, while it is used more akin to a title for her grandchildren.

In honour of Phoebe the Titan, one of the moons of Saturn has been named after her. It is called an irregular satellite, meaning it follows an eccentric, distant orbit which also happens to be retrograde (aka it moves opposite to the rotation of the body it orbits). With a diameter of 213km Phoebe is the most massive of Saturn's irregular satellites, and the second largest retrograde satellite in the Solar System (after Neptune's moon Triton).

There is a Phoebe mentioned in the Bible (New Testament, Paul's Epistle to the Romans). She is described as a deacon (apparently the only woman named as a deacon in the Bible) and Paul speaks highly of her - from skimming the Wikipedia article on the biblical Phoebe this part seems to be some kind of letter of recommendation. It is unclear, what community Paul intends to recommend her to, but some scholars seem to believe that she was, in fact, the emissary who delivered Paul's epistle to Rome in the first place.

(Incidentally, the aforementioned Wikipedia article mentions that the Catholic Church puts her feast day on September 3rd which is my birthday, and my chosen name is Paul, which has nothing to do with this meta, but I just found it funny.)

Anyways. There is also a species of bird called Phoebe in the tyrant flycatcher family (aka Tyrannidae); they live on insects and originally got their scientific name from being loudly territorial and aggressive. And since we, apparently, don't have enough things called Phoebe yet, there's also a genus of evergreen laurels called Phoebe.

To me, this paints a vivid picture: A Titan specifically known for being the progenitor of the Sun and Moon deities, somebody associated with prophecy ("She'll come back" comes to mind as a pertinent prophecy we have on her right now). Phoebe is, of course, the only female First Stoat we have encountered so far. I have a few unformed thoughts on the whole 'emissary' bit (which is, arguably, the piece of information with the least solid grounds presented here; but still, why is Phoebe gone from Last Bast in the first place? Is she an emissary sent by the First Stoats to somewhere else/the humans? How did the First Stoats conquer Warren Peace originally - they didn't just do that on their own, maybe they are the 'emissaries' sent there to actively sabotage the plant?).

The one thing I am certain of, is that First Stoat Phoebe is going to be just as territorial and aggressive as her Tyrannidae namesakes, if not more so.

[un1dentity]

@prkh said "guys who are also haunted houses" on deacon's promo & i am sitting here like. how did u know i had a meta being written about that in my drafts......................

[neoncat666]

hello i am insane about the suckening if you would like to theorize and talk about it with me 👍

yeah you could say im really normal over it. vague spoilers for ep 1 and 2 and more direct spoilers about ep 3

Mind you my knowledge of vtm is very limited due to the last time i even thought about it was years ago and i didn't even play it but oh my god they really got me researching on shit again and ive never wanted to see their character sheets sooo bad

i'm obviously a big fan of Arthur but like i remember when they first introduced shilo i genuinely thought it was a timeskip after emizel fuckin died and thats why they mentioned how similar they looked only to be shot out back with them outright saying theyre related and everyone has made that connection except shilo. theyre relationship facinates me so much cause they emphasize how "identical" they look so its not just a brotherly relationship but a twin relationship as well but also what the fuck lmao??? im excited to see where that goes

speaking of brothers what the fuck Arthur has (had he's probably dead now) a younger brother ??????? and on my second listen through I realize that Charlie explicitly mentions fire along with blood for the nightmare so somehow Arthur lost his younger brother that may or not be related to fire and blood and literally has nightmares every night. somehow for a loner Arthur has a weird amount of ties to other characters /j but like the fact all these characters have being seperated from their brother/family in common is kind of funny. but it also kind of brings into question on if this loss will affect arthur and how he treats the boys. he's made it clear that he's not going to actively stop them from doing stupid shit and getting hurt but he still tried to make sure that they weren't to be targeted during this supposed ambush that seems about to happen. he cares for the vampiric rules enough but also is actively fighting against vampires in general. like its easy to say he wants them alive since he's responsible for emizel and they're both the queen's sons but he's also said he doesn't care what happens to them so im curious and what he full motives are. like more of a meta thing but grizzly making sure he focuses more on the scent of an animal to feed from rather than a supernatural because emizel was right there was something. arthur says otherwise but he wants these two to stay alive whether so he can use them or not cause it seems that he has a group or even just a person who can help him if things get worse around here anyway but he doesn't just let it happen. i also wonder who this new person he's more focused on is cause it could be a few people and i wonder who the person he originally came for is too

also i keep saying arthur n deacon are toxic yaoi and when we met magnus i said that arthur now has doomed yaoi so good on him

[thefuturewithoutus]

i think one of the things i really like about deacon other than being a weird little man is that his character just feels so meta. he ties himself purposefully to this random vault dweller and its like he knows that they're the one who's going to change things. from the railroad terminal entries you can see he's not only had his eyes on the sole survivor from when they got out of the vault but before it too. he's just feels so... different down to how he disguises himself as other npcs and repeating their generic lines and how he has his special little outfit change mechanic. he's also just loaded with references to other fallout games which also raise the question of who he is and where he's been. there's just so many questions about him and none of them are ever really answered because you can't trust what he says. not to mention that there are times when it feels like he's directly speaking to the player (i.e. when you tell moe cronin how baseball was actually played and he goes "out of all the things you could've said, you said that?") he's just so special 2 me.

[corokoro]

it feels really weird to see maccready hate or weird "oh hes a complete asshole actually" kind of posts because like i know some posts are because they didnt like him in fallout 3 which, yeah you're allowed to not like him if he annoys you

but i've seen a few posts of absolutely digging into the guy as an adult in fallout 4, especially stuff about duncan and suspicion it isnt true, which is fair because he has lied a few times, but like...at least from a meta perspective, he has reactions to actions that matches what he tells you. like for the locket minutemen mission, if you say you understand the farmer's struggle with the loss of his child, maccready also emphasizes with the guy and [maccready loved that] pops up. npcs can lie, companions can lie, but the UI and systems can't. his reactions are legitimate. i know fo4 has not the best affinity system, but maccready consistently likes it if you support kids or express sympathy for parents of dead kids.

posts i see can be really harsh and i'm just like hey, can we lay off him at least a little? frankly, i'm not surprised he's prone to lying - as the kid mayor of little lamplight in fo3, he probably had to fall back on deceit a lot of times because it's that or combat, and a 10 year old isn't going to fare well against a group of adult raiders. i haven't really seen many people talk about it, but how he is in fo3 makes him in fo4 make sense, at least to me??

like he's a little kid from a small post-apocalyptic settlement of only children, and he's the one who has to run it as mayor. without parents around to at least attempt to guide the kids in the right direction, things like lying would be pretty common. kids lie when they get in trouble, kids lie to get out of things because they dont like to be in trouble, and that would only really heighten in a survival scenario where they have all these weapons, are easily willing to fight each other, and inevitably have to fight off invaders one way or another. hell, maccready is the one to stop the lone wanderer from entering when you first try to go in.

it feels a little...cruel to be so harsh on maccready when you account for all the little lamplight stuff?? like it doesn't completely absolve him from some of his lies (like he shouldve told lucy he was a mercenary and not a soldier), but honestly at this point it might just be a self-defense mechanism. and considering what the world of fallout is like? i can't blame him.

(also, its kinda hypocritical because like...no one ever talks more seriously about the fact that deacon stalks you up until you join the railroad. like, i havent seen any posts in the fallout 4 tag that ever goes into depth about it. deacons also a notable constant liar, so why does only maccready get these harsh posts?? i don't understand it)

[sluggardly]

“Saint Sturges in his church, looking to fix all the Commonwealth’s problems with duct tape.”

This is just some meta related to my Fallout 4 fanfic “Salvage, Salvation and Rust”, and some of the headcanons it explores regarding Sturges. If you have an interest in the character, I’d recommend reading that first before this. I felt like some of my interpretation of the character deserved some expansion, but that a lengthy author’s note would take away from the impact of the ending. So instead I’m putting my thoughts here:

As I was getting ready to post the fic, I almost felt like I needed to apologize for writing it. The character depicted in the story is very different than the Sturges we see. While building to the (hopeful) swerve of that realization was part of what made writing the story enjoyable, it was also something that I’ve been concerned some readers might find upsetting.

Before Maculategiraffe's fics secured my obsession with Deacon and X6-88 and the weird little vampire story that followed, the character I was really intrigued by was Sturges.

The original fic I set out to write, when I first played the game, was the story of Sturges discovering his (marginally canon) synth nature through the tape of stolen Institute data, and bonding with Danse over same. And I may still write that fic one day. But as I played through the ending of the game while plotting it, it struck me just how little we actually know about Sturges, which when measured against how key a role he plays in a Minutemen victory is kind of mind-boggling.

He's presented when we meet him as a simple wasteland tinkerer, a jovial, kindly, humble guy who insists he's not a fighter. But as the questline progresses, there's a lot that doesn't add up. In Concord, he needs you to go downstairs to hack a terminal claiming that kind of security is above his pay grade, but later he not only builds the Interceptor, he also hands you a holotape capable of data-mining the Institute's archives. Once that data is securied, he manages to locate an entrance to the Institute, manages to hijack their teleporters once more once inside, and he was more than likely the one who built that bomb you use to blow up the reactor at the end.

Weird that there's these hints in the game data, even loose ones that are never alluded to, that he might be a synth.

The idea struck me as supremely interesting. Not just that the Minutemen might have secretly had a synth on their side, but that he would have been the one to make their victory possible. You’re the one who pulls the trigger on the Institute’s destruction, but he’s the one who built the gun. He’s the one who put it in your hand. And no one says anything. No one even knows.

And maybe no one knows because he wants it that way.

A very different image of Sturges started to take shape in my mind. A version who knows exactly what he is. A version who had been placed as a spy in Quincy, a spy who came to love the people he had been put in place to betray, wrestling all the while with a quiet, strangled despair. A spy who spent years in an impossible situation, with no avenue for escape that wouldn’t end with him and the people he cared about dead or worse.

And then, one day, his long-thought-impossible freedom is handed to him in the worst possible way when the Gunners hit Quincy, creating a situation where the Institute almost certainly wrote him off as dead.

The Institute made a monster in the mold of a gentle man, and behind his seemingly guileless smile he's been waiting. And when the opportunity came he went on to make them pay for every horrible thing they ever made him do, using the very skills the Institute built him with to erase them from the map.

[arthurmorganmcgill]

The way he knows how to properly pronounce chutzpah (I guess idk I don’t speak Yiddish/Hebrew) furthers my Jewish!Deacon headcanon

Your fashion choice there? That takes some chutzpah!!!